Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Center was named Design of the Year by London's Design Museum this week in a controversial decision that dominated the news and prompted strong reactions from critics and readers. Read on for more architecture and design highlights from the past seven days, plus our Dezeen Music Project track of the week. (more...)

We're celebrating America's Independence Day today with a roundup of Dezeen's favourite US projects from this year, including a floating skate ramp, a house designed to look like a shadow in the desert and a residence blasted out of the rocks near Seattle. (more...)

This week's job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is a position for an experienced architect at Herzog & de Meuron, whose extension to the Swiss headquarters of insurance company Helvetia is pictured. Visit the ad for full details or browse other architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.

News: the shortlist for this year's World Architecture Festival awards has been announced, including a cyclone-proof house, an Australian plant archive, an underground maritime museum by BIG and OMA's colossal De Rotterdam skyscraper (+ slideshow). (more...)

An exhibition by Dutch curator Li Edelkoort at Israel's Design Museum Holon brings together the series of folding clothing by Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, alongside work by designers Patricia Urquiola, Marcel Wanders and the Bouroullec brothers (+ slideshow). (more...)

Thanks to input from 320 Rabobank employees, the new Rabobank Westelijke Mijnstreek Advice Centre in Sittard, The Netherlands has a collaborative and knowledge-sharing environment in the form of workplaces available to the public, and employees, in a vast auditorium space. “The entire ground floor including the restaurant is open to the public. Both […]

The practice of covering a sofa with a throw, common on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, is transformed in Perrine Vigneron and Gilles Belley’s ‘Barnaby’ sofa for Sancal. “Perrine & Gilles have transformed the anti-aesthetic practice of covering a sofa with a cover into a work of art.” says Sancal. “This tradition was particularly […]

Central Saint Martins graduate Robert Cooper has created chocolate and wafer snacks that can be built into Airfix-style models, which are on display at the New Designers Part 2 exhibition that opened yesterday (+ slideshow). (more...)